The Importance of Being Lily
by melissaeverlasting
Summary: The second Lily Potter reflects on her amazing life and realizes what and who has made it all possible.


**The Importance Of Being Lily**

**Author's Note:** Just a little story I wrote in my post-Deathly Hallows buzz. For some reason, out of all of the kids, I liked Lily the best. _No _idea why. Enjoy the story!

Oh, and two things: first, I don't own Harry Potter (um, obviously) and second, if I got any information wrong here, please don't blame me, I wrote this before JK did that huge interview divulging all of that supplementary information. Sorry!

* * *

Young Lily Potter was sitting on her bed, waiting to be able to check off another day on the calender she had tacked up on her wall, counting the days until she would be able to attend Hogwarts. It was just one year now, as she and her parents had just returned from seeing off James, who was heading for third year, and her other brother Albus and cousin Rose, who would be starting their second years. They were all ecstatic with excitement to return to the friends, classes, teachers, and in James's case food they'd grown to love.

Lily's entire family had been there to see them off- her parents and brothers of course, her aunts and uncles of whom there were so many: Ron, who could always make her laugh; Hermione, who would talk with her if ever she was feeling down; George, who, along with his son Fred, was always upbeat and optomistic, always bringing Lily a new prank or strange magical object from his joke shop which he'd kept up even though his twin, Fred, had tragically died many years before; Charlie, who would show her pictures of dragons and entertain her for hours with stories about them; Charlie's wife Elisa, who was dark-haired, beautiful, and whom Lily regarded almost as kind as her mum, not to mention the fact that she was a Healer and could check out anyone in that family saved precious time and money; Bill, who was a nice, smart man and though he barely ever came around Lily always looked forward to seeing him; and Fleur, who was decent to Lily and her brothers and cousins but rather rude at times to her mum and aunts; it was always a funny sight for Lily to see her mother blow up of anger when she was always scolding them for doing it!

And then of course there were her cousins: Rose, who she loved and admired, was as intelligent and beautiful as Lily could only hope to be; Hugo, who was much less perfect and Lily's favorite because he identified with her and they were very close in age; and Victoire, who could be very stuck up at times due to the fact she was as beautiful as her veela mother but Lily enjoyed the presence of anyways. Her cousin Fred was also fantastic at cheering Lily up; he had inherited his namesake's upbeat, optomistic attitude. Last but not least there was always Teddy Lupin, who almost felt like a cousin because of all the time he spent around the Potter household! He was a troublemaker, much like James, and while Lily rather felt (and often said) that one James was quite enough, she loved being around Teddy and let it show.

Her grandparents were also a fun lot. They were old and, in Lily's opinion, they looked it. Her grandmum still had hints of red in her greying hair and was never anything but kind or scolding to Lily. She told her off rather a lot, and did not spoil her as grandmothers are supposed to do. This was more than made up for with Lily's grandfather, though; he seemed to have something new for her everytime she saw him! He was so much fun with his Muggle appliances Lily often wondered why he'd never started up his own show or whatnot. He never scolded her no matter what she did but, then again, his wife did plenty of that and he really did not need to.

She also had her father's aunt and uncle, which she supposed were her great-aunt and great-uncle, and her dad's cousin, Dudley, who must be her cousin as well. Lily had never met them, but her father had told her about them and he always took a bitter tone in doing so; so in all honesty she never wanted to. Their father always told Lily and her brothers that he was dedicated to giving them a much better life than the one he had had.

She loved her brothers, as well. James was a troublemaker and could be very nosy at times. He could be rather arrogant and, frankly, annoying. He always seemed to need something, be the center of attention. He was good at Quidditch and played Seeker on his house team, just as his father and grandfather/namesake had. He also did not pay all that much mind to his studies and Victoire often bragged that she was the only reason he even passed. Lily's second brother was exceedingly different to James; in fact, they were almost complete opposites. Albus was extremely emotional and easily intrigued. He had many fears and excitements; in short, Lily summed him up as some kind of maniac. But all oddness aside, Albus was a great, kind person and, in his own way, loads of fun.

Then, to conclude her enormous family, finally there were her mum and dad. Her father was very famous and hated the limelight, which was an odd combination. Lily quite enjoyed it when reporters (besides that retched Rita Skeeter, of course) would come to the house and next day Lily would see her own face smiling up at her from a magazine or newspaper. The rest of her family, besides James with his 'ask me anything, I'm so cool' attitude, hated it and Lily often wondered if they were the only reason her dad occasionally allowed the interviews. This she attributed to his amazing kindness. She knew what her father and his friends had been through and how brave he had been. To defeat the most dangerous wizard in the world at any age was an incredible feat, but at seventeen? Lily admired her courageous father and secretly thought that she was very lucky to be just the daughter of the man who'd done it because she honestly doubted that she would have been able to carry out the task.

Harry often said that Lily was exactly like her mother. Well, that was a compliment of the highest order. Ginny was a beautiful witch and the kindest person Lily could name. If ever she needed her, her mother would drop everything and come and comfort her, she'd help her brothers through anything they needed, and she was one of the only people able to calm down Lily's dad afer a meeting with Draco Malfoy, who apparently her family disliked (Lily had never met him, but after all her uncle had told her before her aunt had caught him and insisted that Lily not listen to a word he said, she didn't really want to all that much. She had also seen him at King's Cross and he didn't look all that friendly). She certainly looked like her mother, with her red hair and brown eyes. If she looked like her mother now, she could only imagine how beautiful she'd be at her mum's age! Lily knew James would've called that thought arrogant, though she would have called it a compliment to her mum. But then, who knew more about arrogance than James? Her mum was also a kind, loving, strong person. Lily wanted to be just like her.

The Potters had a lovely home. It was near Lily's cousins' house so they visited often. The house had four bedrooms. They'd had to add one after trying to have James and Albus share with disastrous results due to their being so different. James would constantly tease Albus and Al always took what he said to be true, despite Ginny telling him they were lies.

Lily's parents' room was quite large and roomy. Her mum still had a few photographs of old favorite Quidditch players up on the walls and there were wizarding books of medicine and housekeeping on bookshelves against the left wall. The books had been Lily's grandmother's; she had given them to Ginny when James was born, saying that she now knew all there was to know and that the next generation deserved proper care as well. Ginny rarely used them.

James's room was as messy as his hair, and was basically Quidditch-oriented. There were large posters of Quidditch stars and full teams, one poster of Ginny's former team the Holyhead Harpies, and quite a few of his school Quidditch team. Lily felt as though she was at a game each time she set foot in there, and it sort of creeped her out.

Albus's room was very plain, painted in solid colors with a few chesnut-colored bookshelves lining the walls. Albus loved to read and had loads of books, not to mention the ones he borrowed from Hermione each time he saw her. She and her daughter Rose were overjoyed at having someone to talk about books with; Ron, however, would groan each time the subject came up.

Lily's bedroom was very... her. This was due to the fact her mother had let her decorate it herself. There were flowery decals around the light pink wallpaper. Moving photos slightly scared Lily, so she had had her grandfather take a photograph of her family with a 'carma' or whatever it was called. It was framed near Lily's dark brown desk, which was loaded with Muggle storybooks she had also got from her grandfather. It was fun to read stories of fake magic and laugh at how very wrong they were. It seemed cruel to Lily that they had to live without magic but her family had laughed this notion off, and her father (who had grown up a Muggle) had informed her they got along just fine.

Her house was gorgeous, but it was really the people that visited that made it seem more like a home. Lily's parents had many friends beside those that were now relatives, such as Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom, who came over quite a bit. Luna had taken over 'The Quibbler', a magazine Ginny loved and Lily loved to read with her. Some of the things they printed were almost like stories, for who ever heard of Nargles or Wrackspurts? But Luna herself had once admitted that they were so rare that many people were right to believe that they were a hoax. Neville was the Herbology professor at Hogwarts and was all time adored for making the tastefully dry subject fun. Lily couldn't wait to take his class, but really, she couldn't wait to set foot in any classroom.

But her relatives and friends weren't the only idols Lily had. She was also extremely interested in her grandparents, her grandmother especially. She knew about as much as Harry did about her courageous elders, and like him was desperate to find out more. She was named after her grandmother, her grandmother who had died entirely too young and, Lily thought angrily, very unfairly.

From the few photos she had seen of her other grandmother, she had looked a lot like Ginny and, inevitably, Lily herself. She had died to save her son. Lily's father. If it hadn't been for her, Lily would not be on this earth. Her mum would had married someone else. Her family would not even have been all the same. The dark wizard Voldemort would be at large, with no prophecy because Harry Potter would be dead.

She had never thought about it before, but Lily suddenly realized that she owed her life, her family, her friends, and everything that was good in the world to her grandmother. Everyone did. But it just was not right for her to have had to die. Nor was it right for her Uncle Fred, Teddy's parents, the two men Albus had been named after or anyone else that had died unfairly or without another thought by the evil-marked and ill-deserved wands of Death Eaters to be gone. The world owed everything to her family, her brave relatives and dazzlingly courageous father and, most of all, her grandmother. The beautiful heroine that she herself was lucky enough to carry the exact name of. The woman who had made Lily's extraordinary life possible. And there was no greater honor in Lily's opinion than to be a part of this fun, loving family she was a part of, and to be named after this wonderful woman who'd made it worthwhile to give her life away. The name seemed to carry a huge weight that the next Lily Potter could only fulfill herself. It was her own prophecy, though it was different than the one her father had had. It was wordless, fearless, an unspoken plea in a language only she could decipher.

Something that she summed up as simply the importance of being Lily.


End file.
